'14th &"P STG.
'rripuizAnr:
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STAlifS Hi
I 1
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'Duddy Kravitz' excellent fiij
The discovery of a worthwhile film
that slips quietly into our contemporary
movie scene is a welcome experience,
especially during times when publicity
feeds us preconceived visions that often
determine our movie going habits.
Unless you devour film reviews you
probably haven't heard much about The
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. It's a
Canadian film, it has no big name, box
office stars and an even lesser known
director, and the film's publicity really
didn't know what to make of itself. Yet it
is an excellent motion picture, with only
a few weaknesses keeping it from being
,one of the best of the year. .
Richard Dreyfuss plays Duddy, the
20-year-old son of a Jewish cabdriver
(Jack Warden), who lives in Montreal in
the late 1940s. Duddy comes from a
family of failures and the f i!m, at core, is
a treatise on a young man's overpower
ing ambition to be somebody.
Kotcheff has no notlcableistyiesand
the movie conveys no feeling of where it
should begin or end.- It ::s'eeriwtttrfloat
through individual chronological- scenes
that, when strung together, come out
stronger than the whole. ':y'y(l'-f;y
The movie takes a curious and often
uncomfortable stand toward Semitism,
especially when we get a chance to see
Duddy's first bar-mitzvah film. Friar's
creation is a heavy-handed artsy-craftsy
essay on Jewish persecution entitled
"Happy Bar-mitzvah, Bernie!" Duddy
would rather have had "Lots of relatives
in the picture."
Jim IH
greg lukow
Duddy would never admit it, but his
success comes before his friends. He
loses his dairy-maid-looking sweetheart
(Micheiine Lanctot) and his best friend,
played by Randy Quaid (an Oscar
nominee from The Last Detail). Quaid
turns in another of his excellent
backward-hick characterizations, this
time as an epileptic whose hope is to
someday organize all the epileptics of
the world and form their own interest
group. He ends up paralyzed (from the
waist down after having a siezure while
driving one of Duddy's trucks.
Duddy's dream is to buy an isolated
lake and the land surrounding it in
hopes of someday turning it into a resort
area. It really doesn't matter what he
does to earn the money. As it turns out,
he hires an alcoholic, reject film director
named Friar (Denholm Elliot), and
together they produce wedding and
bar-mitzvah films for Jewish families.
Besides, as Duddy reflected, "Toni
home-perm had already been invent
ed." Duddy was directed with amazing
inconsistency byN Ted Kotcheff. He
knows how to handle his actors and
some of the small touches in the movie
add'a delicate insight to Duddy's
character. Other sequences, however,
are so ineptly handled that they not only
ring hollow but we wonder why they are
there at all.
7i
Richard Dreyfuss goes after suc
cess in The Apprenticeship of
Duddy Kravitz.'
Richard Dreyfuss' Duddy is one of the
best acting jobs of the year. As the
graduate teenager from American
Grafitti Dreyfuss spent most of that film
walking around with. his hands in his
pockets in a quiet, introspective uncer
tainty. In Duddy Kravitz his portrayal
takes a complete turnaround. He is
nervous, fidgety and always on the
move. We can get into this character yet
he does a lot of selfish things we hate to
see. It's the same kind of likeable
bastard role patented by Jack Nicholson
and Dreyfuss adds a fresh, enthusiastic
dimension to it.
Despite its pluses and minuses, it is
Richard Dreyfuss that makes Duddy
Kravitz as good as it is. His name is
another to be added to the growing list
of new, young American actors who
have turned out marvelous perfor
mances during this. past movie year."
. 1 1,
BOltyWQCO and U!N
THEATRE NO. 1
:V Tint:
1JKSTOFTIIK
NEW YORK
EROTIC
FUjM ERSTIVAI,
1:30
3:30
,7:30
9:30
C
mm
1
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2,
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THEATRE NO. 2
,,.TfC ULTIMATE "X"'
mm wra?r mtwwy
for...
a ;' r ; t
Ercouag!Dg i.teraf!d relations telwten coed tlidenis.
t- '- ' 1 -
4 1"
Wednesday, September 18, 1974
daily nebraskan
n
Goodbye, Olonoopsjp
"Harold and Maude" finally ended its run in
Minneapolis, after 798 precedent-shatterif! days (or 26 Vz
months, or 2 years and 2Vi months, however you count).
Some picketing neighbors, tired of looking ttU same old ;
marquee, breathed a sigh of relief. But thousands of H and M
devotees, who had been seeing the movia over and over, were
left wondering what they would do with their Saturday nights.
"Harold and Maude" are ours nov.Te don't anticipate
any picketing - there are a number of other .marquees in the
neighborhood, after all. But if the record-making crowds are any
indication, we do anticipate a long, long run, Maybe evert longer
than the one set by Minneapolis.
Can we match them? Can we beat them?
Let's go. '
Porwnowni Picture fret '
HAROLD end MAUDE
RUTHGORO
BUDCXM
OOOOO O'O CO
o
fs. 4
SPECIAL.
v
A P1ACT
MOTHINn SHORT OF A MASTERPltCE!
IT HAS TEN TIMES THE ENERGY - V "
OF MOST CONTEMPORARY FlUf w . V W
-flex fleed, A. V. Day News
1 U 'ii7 AAM((rtirW(tA,t r
C', !y tt 2:33,
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4$ P M.
a ii enounn to ay ituu nti innt.rci euu up iu
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M4L r Alison
A Belter Movie Than IM'S'II!
m
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"t'l!?fil iht
a winning hand"
-Vincwl Criby, New Vurk Titim
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ISRESISTABLE lx
-
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- H':'Oii'3 r.ii,-i
W'mns VA;a Daily
a "fai-v. x . V I -1
page 13
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